This week’s sneak peek is another personal favourite theme of mine: murder most foul. Here are three of the latest YA releases featuring a couple murder mysteries…
A Good Idea
I think it started with the seizure. Serena and I talked about it later, and she agreed that if Ann Russo hadn’t had an epileptic fit during the graduation ceremony, she would have been far less likely to contribute her own outburst to the proceedings. Something about the sight of Ann spasming on the ground, red hair gleaming against the aggressively green, meticulously manicured grass of the backfield, mouth opening and closing wordlessly like a fish, gave what had been until then an unnoteworthy ceremony … a surreal quality that sent things firmly off the rails.
Author: Cristina Moracho
Publisher: Viking Children’s Books (Penguin Random House)
Published: February 28, 2017
For Those Who Enjoyed: Girl on the Train, Gone Girl, Castle, All the Bright Places, Cuckoo’s Calling, Allegedly, Asking For It
If I were an agent/acquisitions editor, would I select this for publication based on the opening chapter?:
Yes. When I go looking for thrillers with a hint of murder, I want ‘em gritty, brutal, and gory. I want to be shocked and horrified and A Good Idea succeeds from page one. A lot is going on in this first chapter, and it sets up so many intriguing questions. This opening scene takes place during a graduation ceremony (I would argue, a rarity in YA novels?), where a dead girl’s murderer is allowed to cross the stage while the victim goes completely unacknowledged. Meanwhile, another graduating student suffers a seizure. Right away, Moracho’s setting up a heavy message she wants to share. She gets to the point without messing around with irrelevant narrative developments. Her protagonist stands for justice for girls who are victimised while their predators go free without acknowledgement of their crimes or compromising their reputation. It’s a message to get angry about and makes you want to follow her down the rabbit hole to see where this goes. I like that we’re reaching an age where murder and violence in fiction isn’t just meant to shock. When done right, it’s to prove a point, and shed a light on the corruptions of society and the legal system. And I can clearly see that’s what Moracho’s doing here. She’s got a point to make.
To Catch a Killer
I soothe my forehead against the icy car window and breathe out a path of fog. If I squint one eye, the neon splashed across the rain-slicked street forms a wide, cruel mouth.
Author: Sheryl Scarborough
Publisher: Tor Teen (Macmillan)
Published:February 7, 2017
For Those Who Enjoyed: Cuckoo’s Calling, Castle, Law and Order, NCIS
Would I Select it for Publication?
Given there are so many cop procedurals out there about murder cases, this one’s a little too cookie cutter for me. The title even sounds exactly like every other true crime program on tv right now. There is obviously a market for books like these, otherwise we wouldn’t have dozens and dozens of crime series out there. As far as crime novels go, you kind of have to start with a bang. There’s a reason why every crime show opens with the murder itself and backtracks. Instead, in this, Scarborough opens with a witness investigation. Which, in terms of the crime plot structure, isn’t necessarily the most interesting part of the murder mystery formula. (In my humble opinion.) Right away, I wanna know how did the person die, and who are they. All we know from this chapter is that it’s the protagonist’s teacher, and there was a lot of blood. Obviously, if you’re a die-hard mystery reader (which I’m not), and you like to have a quick, poolside read during your holidays, then maybe this is right up your alley. It’s just not quite up mine…
Dreamland Burning
Nobody walks in Tulsa. At least not to get anywhere. Oil built our houses, paved our streets, and turned us from a cow town stop on the Frisco Railroad into the heart of Route 66. My ninth-grade Oklahoma History teacher joked that around these parts, walking is sacrilege. Real Tulsans drive.
Author: Jennifer Latham
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers (Hachette)
Published:February 21, 2017
For Those Who Enjoyed: Holes, The Help, Their Eyes Were Watching God, To Kill a Mockingbird, Allegedly
Would I Select it for Publication?
I don’t know about this one! This one’s got a slow build which doesn’t immediately grip you like it should. It gets there by the end of the first chapter, but it felt like I was going through the motions to get to that point. It does definitely feel, though, like Latham’s also got a point to make. Hers is one about race relations and slave-era America and how it’s impossible to erase that corrupt history, no matter how hard you try to clean the slate. There is clearly something to be said for erasure of victims, whether they’re women, like Moracho’s narrative, or black people, as Latham’s addressing. It’s incredibly topical now especially and I think it’s important to bring that discussion to teens as accessibly as possible. So while I don’t think this would be an immediately obvious choice for me as an agent, there is undoubtedly a place on the shelves for this novel and a reason it’s out there now. Sometimes that’s the burden agents and publishers face – the topics don’t always align with their categories of interest, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t deserve to be out in the world!
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